Canada opens Montreal stadium to Haitian refugees fleeing U.S.

Canada is temporarily housing asylum seekers in Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The first groups were bused there on Wednesday. The Canadian government says the number of migrants crossing from the U.S. into Canada has increased in recent months.
AP

Canada is temporarily housing asylum seekers in Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The first groups were bused there on Wednesday. The Canadian government says the number of migrants crossing from the U.S. into Canada has increased in recent months.(Photo: AP)

A surge of asylum-seeking Haitians fleeing the United States amid increasing deportation fears is overwhelming Canadian immigration agencies and has compelled the opening of the mammoth Olympic Stadium in Montreal to temporarily house some of the refugees.

PRAIDA, a government-funded immigrant-support program in Quebec, said it received 1,200 new requests from refugees in July, almost four times the normal monthly total. About 90% were Haitian.

“It’s unheard of,” PRAIDA leader Francine Dupuis told the Montreal Gazette. “In 30 years, I’ve never seen this kind of volume or intensity.”

Dupuis said most of the new arrivals are Haitians who fear their temporary resident status in the U.S. will be revoked. The dire concern began to emerge in May when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it would extend immigration protections for almost 60,000 Haitians living in the U.S. for six more months — but urged them to start returning home.

Many came to the U.S. in the aftermath of Haiti's savage 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and destroyed much of the tiny, poverty-stricken Caribbean nation.

Jean Dorméus, who led a youth group in Cap-Haitien, is among Montreal’s new arrivals. He told the Gazette he fled Haiti six months ago when individuals threatened to kill him and his family. He said his father was assassinated, so he and his mother and sister fled to the Dominican Republic, then to Mexico before crossing into San Diego and asking for asylum.

He said he was told his chances for asylum were slim and odds of deportation strong.

“It’s not good for us there now,” he told the Gazette. “It’s not safe in the U.S., and I can’t go back to Haiti.”

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre extended a warm welcome on Twitter: "The city of Montreal welcomes the Haitian refugees. You can count on our full cooperation."

Dupuis told Radio-Canada that about 150 people moved into the stadium Wednesday after a local YMCA and other options filled up. She said the temporary stadium quarters can hold a few hundred more.

“We’re doing our best, but obviously there’s going to be a limit," she said. "And we’re close to that limit.”